Chapter 3: Attraction

Question 1

Basic Assumption of Attraction

Answer 1

we like those who reward us either because they provide us: direct rewards by treating us well or indirect rewards

Question 2

Instrumentality

Answer 2

the extent to which someone is able to help us achieve our present goals, may be key; we are attracted to tother who can help us get what we currently want

Question 3

Proximity

Answer 3

we tend to like those who live or work near us; small distances have a larger influence on relationships than most people realize

Question 4

Familiarity

Answer 4

repeated contact; mere exposure to, or repeated contact with someone usually increases our liking for him or her; familiarity foes not breed contempt

Question 5

Convenience

Answer 5

proximity is rewarding and distance is costly; partners who are close at hand are usually able to provide us more benefits, at lesser expense, than distant partners

Question 6

How can proximity and familiarity cause complications and make things worse?

Answer 6

when people live near others who are disagreeable or obnoxious; when people who have met online come face to face for the first time; partners in a long distance relationship are reunited after some time apart

Question 7

The Power of Proximity

Answer 7

proximity makes it more likely that two people will meet and interact, and when our goal is simply to get along and have a good time, familiarity and conveince with others usuall increase our attraction to them

Question 8

Our Bias for Beauty

Answer 8

“what is beautiful is good”; we tend to assume automatically that physically attractive people have other desirable traits

Question 9

We may also confuse beauty with talent…

Answer 9

attractive people eaern higher salaries and are promoted more often at work; attractive professors get better evaluations; attractive miscreants are treated more kindly in court; attractive politicians are judged more leniently

Question 10

Who’s Pretty?

Answer 10

there is much more agreement than disagreemtn from culture to culture and group to group about what faces and features are physically attractive

Question 11

Attractive for women is…

Answer 11

women are more attractive when they combine baby-faced features such as large eyes, small nose, and full lips with signs of maturity such as prominent cheekbones, narrow cheeks, and a broad smile

Question 12

Attractive for men is…

Answer 12

men with strong jaws and broad foreheads seem appealing when women are fertile; during the rest of the month, women prefer men with warmer and more youthful features

Question 13

Attractive faces in both sexes are…

Answer 13

average (possesing dimensions that are neither too large or too small); symmetrical (with two sides of the face being mirror images of each other)

Question 14

Womens bodies are most attractive….

Answer 14

if her waist to hip ratio is 0.7 giving her and hourglass figure

Question 15

Mens bodies are most attractive…

Answer 15

if his waist to hip ratio is 0.9 and it only matters if he earns a decent salary; a man is not all that attractive to women if he is handsome but poor

Question 16

Attractiveness in regards to height, smell, hair, intelligence and the color red

Answer 16

height: both men and women prefer relationships in which the man is taller than the woman; smell: attractive people smell better; hair: men prefer women with longer hair, and women prefer men who have short hair; intelligence: women like smart guys; the color red: both men and women find strangers of the other sex to be more attractive and sexually appealing when they are wearing red

Question 17

An evolutionary perspective on physical attractiveness

Answer 17

standards of who is and who is not attractive are the same around the world; babies are born with preferences for the same faces that we find attractive in adults; people with attractive symmetrical faces tend to have bodies that are symmetrical and tend to enjoy food physical and mental health

Question 18

How does a woman’s behavior change towards men when she is fertile?

Answer 18

they dress more provocatively and wear more cosmetics; they are more flirtatious toward attractive men and they are 3x more likely to wear something red; men think that women smell better when they are fertile and more attractive when fertile

Question 19

What matters the most when you meet someone for the first time?

Answer 19

their looks

Question 20

The interactive costs and benefits of beauty

Answer 20

looks have a larger effect on the social lives of men than women; unattractive men have fewer interactions with women that good looking guys ; attractive people tend to be a little happier than unattractive people, but they do not trust other people as much

Question 21

Matching

Answer 21

people tend to pair off with others of similar levels of physical attractiveness; the more serious and committed a relationship becomes the more obvious matching usually is

Question 22

Desirability

Answer 22

physical attractiveness multiplied by probability of acceptanceM

Question 23

Mate value

Answer 23

our overall attractiveness as reproductive partners; people with high mate values are highly sought by others, and as a result, they are able to insist on partners of high quality

Question 24

Similarity

Answer 24

birds of a feather do flock together; we tend to like those who share our: age, race, sex, education, religion, social class, attitudes, values, and personalities

Question 25

Do opposites attract?

Answer 25

no; but there are several subtelties in the way similarity operates that may mislead people into think that opposites do sometimes attract

Question 26

How much do we think we have in common?

Answer 26

perceived similarity matters; our perceptions of how much we have in common matter more than our actual similarity does and partners routinerly think that they have more in common with each other than they really do

Question 27

Dissimilarities can….

Answer 27

take time; it may take a while to find out that we dont have as much in common as we had thought; but they may decrease over time; shared experiences and a quest for compatibility can make partners more similar as time goes by

Question 28

Fatal Attractions

Answer 28

can occur; something we initially like about a new partner can gradually become one of the most obnoxious, irritating things we dislike about that partner

Question 29

What similarities do routinely matter?

Answer 29

housework and gender roles; spouses who are more alike and who share household work equally tend to be content

Question 30

Complementarity

Answer 30

one way “opposites” may attract now and then; we like partners who entertain and support us; the blend of similarities and differences that form an optimal mix may vary from couple to couple; but most complementary behavior is similar behavior, with partners desiring the same goals and working together to attain them

Question 31

Around the world, everybody prefers partners who offer…

Answer 31

warmth and loyalty; attarctiveness and vitality; status and resources

Question 32

For long term mating…

Answer 32

men insist on moderate attractiveness, but they want all the warmth, honesty, humor, and intelligence they can get; women inists on moderate status and resources, but they want all the warmth honesty, humor, and intelligence they can get

Question 33

Dealbreakers

Answer 33

the characteristics that would lead them to reject someone as a partner, both sexes put objectionable traits, ill-health, and poor hygiene at the top of their list; men and women generally agree on similar thing but women are a bit more cautious and choosy and have more dealbreakers than men